One of the salient features of today's modern organizations on a global, national, regional and local level is the ability to leverage information technology to command and control systems in real or near-real time. Advances in the technologies that integrate sensor and communications systems, for instance, facilitate determination of the precise location of mobile vehicles. Various modern information systems permit such location determination, including space, airborne, terrestrial and marine-based command and control systems.
Every vehicle equipped with such a command and control system is able to determine the location using geospatial positioning technology such as the global positioning system (GPS), the long range navigation (LORAN) system, or any others, and then report that vehicle's information to higher command structures/systems using secure wireless linkages. Vehicles equipped with command and control systems also receive a variety of messages from higher command structures/systems, including the known locations of other related vehicles and other unknown or suspected locations of non-related vehicles. Command and control systems also allow vehicles to send and receive warning messages and in turn permit, for instance, the alerting of related vehicles about such significant events whether developing or in progress. Various U.S. patents disclose the networking of mobile nodes for the purpose of sharing information. Two pertinent U.S. patents in this area are described below.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,049,952 discloses a system for detecting the occurrence of anomalies, includes a plurality of spaced apart nodes, with each node having adjacent nodes, each of the nodes having one or more sensors associated with the node and capable of detecting anomalies, and each of the nodes having a controller connected to the sensors associated with the node. The system also includes communication links between adjacent nodes, whereby the nodes form a network. Each controller is programmed to query its adjacent nodes to assess the status of the adjacent nodes and the communication links.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,930,596 discloses a system for detecting the occurrence of anomalies, includes a plurality of spaced apart nodes, with each node having adjacent nodes, each of the nodes having one or more sensors associated with the node and capable of detecting anomalies, and each of the nodes having a controller connected to the sensors associated with the node. The system also includes communication links between adjacent nodes, whereby the nodes form a network. Each controller is programmed to query its adjacent nodes to assess the status of the adjacent nodes and the communication links.
The above-described systems rely on the proper management and functioning of integrated databases. Much of the current art on database management systems revolves around the idea of building massive repositories of data, and resolving the complex synchronization issues that arise among them. Though some work has been done in the area of distributed embedded database management systems, it is focused on the notion that these embedded devices act as a sort of cache to address the data needs of the user when there is no connectivity to a dedicated server. The current art, therefore, requires that functioning of and access to the master data stores (such as a central database in communication with a central server) are required in order for the distributed system to work. Situations arise, however, where access to a central (main) database is unavailable, yet there remains an urgent need for utilization of the system (and particularly affected individual, i.e., local, nodes).
Therefore, there is a need to overcome the deficiencies with the prior art and more particularly for a more efficient way to facilitate the exchange of pertinent data between mobile nodes over a communications network even in the absence of a dedicated central data store.